“I am an angel,” said the Beautiful Being, truly, “and I have come to prove to you that miracles can happen, and to assure you that when you leave your body behind on the morrow I shall meet you on the other side of the change.” Mary could also hear and see, and she fell on her knees with a little sob of joy and wonder; for she had never seen an angel, though her faith was strong enough to remove mountains. “Then it is really true!” Tom gasped. “I shall not die with my body. And how wonderful you are!” For the Beautiful Being had performed the transformation so well that it preserved in its borrowed body all the glory and amazing loveliness of that form which charms the hosts of the unseen world. “I no longer doubt,” said Tom. “I believe, and I die happy.” “I shall not forget to meet you when you come out,” smiled my friend. “Good-bye now, for a little while. I leave you with Mary, who is also a kind of angel.” Slowly the borrowed shape retreated towards the body of the sleeping saloon-keeper, and after a moment my friend stood beside me, clothed in its own pure form; but on its shoulders and feet were dark stains that looked like mud. “They will soon blow away in the fresh air outside,” smiled the Beautiful Being. “And was it not worth while to convince that soul of its own immortality?” We passed out under the stars, but the scene left an indelible impression on my consciousness. And I shall often remember when I feel self-righteous, how the purest being I ever knew wore the soiled garment of a vulgar saloon-keeper, which left stains on its dainty shoulders and its shining feet--how it dipped itself for the first time in the filth of the world, for love’s sake. _April 17._ LETTER XXVI A MASTER OF MIND TO-NIGHT, the seventeenth of April, nineteen hundred and fifteen, there passed along the battle line of one of the nations at war a great spiritual being, a being whose body is mind and who works through the mind alone. The hour had come when a certain number of those who had fought bravely for their ill-starred country might know that their cause was hopelessly lost. A few only might know to-night; but their knowledge will spread, and with spreading knowledge will come a change of spirit. It is disheartening to fight on for a lost cause. It takes a peculiar quality of devotion, a rare quality of devotion. What will come from the visit of that celestial being, you wonder? Wait and see. I rarely permit myself to prophesy. I only figure out the probable result of causes known to me. You can do the same, if you let reason take the place of predilection. To judge clearly of the effects of a given cause, the mind must be unbiased by desire; it must be as cold as a mathematical calculation. It is by this celestial algebra that Masters look ahead.